THE LIGHT OF COMMON DAY.
Even in the quietest lives the first few years of married life are apt
to bring changes: the ideal dies off, with its fairy colours; the
realities of ordinary existence come with a leap upon the surprised
young people, to whom everything has been enveloped in the glory and the
brightness of a dream. That plunge into the matter-of-fact is often more
trying to the husband--who rarely sees the bride of his visions drop
into the occupations of the housewife and the mother without a certain
pang--than to the young woman herself, who in the pride and delight of
maternity finds a still higher promotion, and to whom the commonest
cares, the most material offices, which she would have shrunk from a
little while before, become half divine. But when the house is very
poor to begin with, and there is no margin left for enlargements, this
inevitable change is more deeply felt. By the time the third child
arrived, the Asquiths had changed their ideas about many things. Mary’s
help in the parish was now very fitful. She still accomplished what was
a great deal “for her:” but there had been no conditions or limits to
her labours in those early days, when she had worked like a second
curate, bearing her full share of everything. These were the days in
which so many things had been undertaken, more than any merely mortal
curate could keep up; and in the meantime there had been a great many
disappointments in the parish. Even before Mary’s powers failed, the
influence of the new impulse was over. The people had got accustomed to
all the many things that were being done for them: they were no longer
taken by surprise. The ancient _vis inertia_--that desire to be let
alone which is so strong in the English character--came uppermost once
more. “Oh, here’s this botherin’ practice again!” the boys and girls
began to say; or, “It’s club night, but I ain’t a-going. Them as gets
the good of the money can come and fetch it!”--for the village people by
this time had got it well into their heads that the custody of their
pennies and sixpences was in some occult way to the curate’s advantage.
And so in one way after another, ground was lost. Mr. Asquith got fagged
and worn out in his efforts to do more than one man could do, without
the help which had borne him up so triumphantly at first; he was deeply
discouraged by the defection of so many; and he felt to the bottom of
his soul the triumph in the eyes of Mrs. Prescott, at the rectory, who
had always said nothing would come of it. The rector, for his part,
would not show any triumph. He had behaved very well throughout; he had
not resented the curate’s attempts to improve upon all his own ways, and
do more than ever had been done before in Horton. And now when the
fervour of these first reformations began to fail, he did not say, “I
told you so,” as so many would have done. He was very moderate, very
temperate, rather consoling than aggravating the disappointment. “Human
nature is always the same,” he said. “Even when you get it stirred up
for a time, it reclaims its right to do wrong--and yet all good work
tells in the long run,” Mr. Prescott said, which was very good-natured
of him, and was indeed straining a point; for he was by no means so sure
that in the long run these Quixotic exertions did tell. But Mrs.
Prescott was not so forbearing. “You might have known from the beginning
this was how it would be,” she said to Mary. “You young people think you
are the only people who have ever attempted anything; but it isn’t
so--it’s quite the contrary. We have all tried what we could do, and
we’ve all been disappointed. I could have told you so from the first, if
you had shown any inclination to be guided by me!”
“Oh, Aunt Jane!” cried Mary, “it all went on beautifully at first. It is
my fault, that have not kept up as I ought to have done. If I hadn’t
been such a poor creature, everything would have gone well.”
“There is something in that,” said Mrs. Prescott, who had never had any
babies. “It is always a sad thing when a young woman has so many
children----”
“Aunt Jane!” cried Mary, almost with a scream. She gathered the little
new baby to her bosom, and over its downy little head glared at her
childless aunt. “As if they were not the most precious things in
life--as if they were not God’s best gift! as if we could do without any
one of them!”
“Perhaps not, my dear, now they are here,” said Mrs. Prescott; “but you
may let your friends say that it would have been much better for you if
they had not come so fast.”
To this Mary could not make any reply, though her indignation was
scarcely diminished. She was, indeed, very indignant on this point. All
of these ladies--her aunt at the Hall and the girls, as well as her
aunt at the rectory--spoke and looked as if Mary was no better than a
victim, helplessly overwhelmed with children; whereas she was a proud
and happy mother, thinking none of them fit to be compared with her in
her glory. That they should venture to pity her, and say poor Mary! she,
who was in full possession of all that is most excellent in life, was
almost more than the curate’s wife could bear. Her two little boys and
her little girl were her jewels as they were those of the Roman woman
whom Mary had heard of, but whom she would have thought it too
high-flown to quote. She felt, all the same, very much like that
classical matron. Anna and Sophie were very proud of their diamond pins,
which even for diamonds were poor things; and they had the impertinence
to pity her and her three children! Mary fumed all the time they paid
her their visits, which had the air of being visits of condolence rather
than of congratulation; and in her weakness cried with vexation and
indignation after they had left. The curate came in before those angry
tears were dried, and her agitated feelings burst forth. “They come to
me and pity me,” she cried, “till I don’t know how to endure them! Oh,
Harry, I wish we were not so near my relations! Strangers daren’t be so
nasty to you as your relations!” Mary sobbed, with the long-pent-up
feeling, which in that moment of feebleness she could not restrain.
“My dearest, never mind them,” he said soothingly. And then, after a
pause, with some hesitation,--“Mary, this gives me courage to say what I
never liked to say before. Don’t you find, even with your own little
income, dear, which I was so anxious should not be touched, and with all
the advantages here, that it is very difficult to make both ends meet?”
“Oh, Harry! I have been trying to keep it from you. I didn’t want to
burden you with that too. Difficult! it is impossible! I must give Betsy
warning. I have been making up my mind to it. After all, it is only
pride, you know, for she is very little good. I have had most of the
work to do myself all the time. I must give her warning as soon as I am
well--or rather, we must try to find her a place, which is the best
way.”
“What?” cried the curate. “Betsy, the only creature you have to do
anything for you! No, no. I cannot allow that.”
“The housekeeping is my share,” said Mary, with a smile; “now that I can
do so little in the parish, I may at least be of use at home. And if you
only knew how little good she is! She can’t even amuse little Hetty, and
Jack won’t go to her!” These frightful details Mary gave with the
temerity they deserved. “I’ll tell you what I am going to do. There are
the Woods, who have always been so nice, so regular at school, and
attentive about the club. I mean to have Rosie, the eldest, to come in
for an hour or two in the morning to look after the children while I get
things tidy; and then Mrs. Wood herself will come on Saturdays and give
everything a good clean up: and you will see we shall get on
beautifully,” Mary said, smiling upon him with her dewy eyes, which were
still wet. But the irritation had all died away, and in the pallor of
her recent pangs, and the sacredness of her motherhood, no queen of a
poet’s imagination could have looked more sweet.
“Oh, Mary, my darling!” cried the poor curate in his love and
compunction. “To think I should have brought you to this!”
“To what?” said Mary radiant, “to the greatest happiness in life, to do
everything for one’s own? Oh! Harry, I am afraid I have not the
self-devotion a clergyman’s wife ought to have. I was happy to work in
the parish--but, dear, if you won’t despise me very much--I think I am
happier to work for the children and you.”
What could the poor man do? He kissed her and went away humiliated, yet
happy. That he should have to consent to be served by her in the
homeliest practical ways--she, who was his love and his lady--had
something excruciating in it; and to think that his love should have
brought her to this, and that he should have foreseen it, and yet done
it in the weakness of his soul! But when he went back to that, the
curate could not be sorry either that he had loved Mary, or that he had
told her his love, or married her. She was not sorry--God bless
her!--but radiant and happy as the day, and more sweet, and more sacred,
and more beautiful than she had been even in her girlhood. What could he
say? He would not even disturb that exquisite moment by telling her of
the change that he was beginning to contemplate. Things could wait at
least for a few days.
But when she told him that she had given Betsy warning, the curate did
speak. “I have done it,” she said, partly by way of excuse for bringing
in the tea herself, which she did, panting a little, but smiling over
the tray. “We shall be so much better off with Mrs. Wood coming in one
day in the week. Then we shall really have the satisfaction of knowing
that everything is clean for once, and no little spy in the house to
report to everybody what we have for dinner; but we must try and get her
another place, Harry; for though the children don’t like her, and I
should never recommend her for a nursery, there are some things that she
can do.”
“Some things you have taught her to do,” Mr. Asquith said.
“So much the more credit to me,” said Mary, laughing, “for she is not
very easy to teach.”
It was evening, and the children were in bed and all quiet. The little
creature last born lay all covered up in the sitting-room beside them,
in a cradle, which the ladies at the Hall, notwithstanding their
indignation at his appearance, had trimmed with muslin and lace and made
very ornamental: and Mary was glad to put herself in the rocking-chair
which her cousin John had given her, and lie back a little and rest.
“One never knows,” she said, “how pleasant it is to rock, till one knows
what work is. But, Harry, you are over-tired, you don’t care for your
tea.”
“I care a great deal more for seeing you tired,” he said. “Mary, I want
to speak to you about something very serious. Would it break your heart,
my dearest, if we were to go away from Horton? That is the question I
didn’t venture to ask the other day.”
“Break my heart! when the children are well, and you? What a question to
ask! Nothing could break my heart,” cried Mary, with a delightful laugh,
“so long as all is right with you.”
And then he told her that another curacy had been offered him, a curacy
in a large town. It would be very different from Horton. He would be
under the orders of a very well-known clergyman, a great organiser, a
man who was very absolute in his parish, instead of being free to do
almost anything he pleased, as under Uncle Hugh’s mild sway. And he
would have a great deal of work, but within bounds and limits, so that
he would know what was expected from him, without having the general
responsibility of everything. And though he would be under the rector,
yet he would be over several younger curates, and in his way a sort of
vice-bishop too. “But you must remember,” he said, “that we shall have
to live in a street without any garden, with very little fresh air. It
will be quite town, not even like a suburb--nothing but stone walls all
round you.”
Mary’s countenance fell. “Oh, Harry! that will not be good for the
children.”
“I believe there is a park in which the children can walk,” he said,
upon which Mary brightened once more.
“In that case, I don’t mind the other things,” she said, rocking softly
in her chair; “but, Harry, how shall you like to be dictated to, and
told everything that you have to do?”
“I should like anything,” he said, “that gave you a little more comfort,
my poor Mary. There is two hundred and fifty a year----”
He said it with solemnity, as was right--“Two hundred and fifty a year.”
Few are the curates who rejoice in such an income. Mary brought her
chair down upon the floor with a sound which but lightly emphasised her
astonishment and awe. These feelings were so strong in her mind that
they had to be expressed before pleasure came.
“And you really have this offered to you, Harry? _offered_, without
looking for it?”
“Yes,” said the curate, with the hush and wonder of humility, feeling
that he could not account for such a piece of good fortune.
“That shows,” cried she, “how much you are appreciated, how you are
understood. Oh, Harry! the world is wonderfully kind and right-feeling,
after all.”
“Yes,” he said, “sometimes; there are a great many kind people in the
world. And you don’t mind it, my darling? you don’t mind leaving Horton
and all your relations, and the neighbourhood you have lived in all your
life?”
“Mind it!” she cried, and paused a little, and dried her eyes, which
were full. “Harry,” she said, with a little solemnity, “I think when
people marry and have a family of their own, it is always a little like
the beginning of a new world; don’t you think so? Everything is changed.
It seems natural to go to a new place, to make a real new start, more
natural than to stay where one has always been. Then, when they grow up,
there will be openings for the boys; and Hetty will be able to get a
good education. Mind it! I am sure it is the right thing.”
“I am very glad, dear. I feared you might have doubts about leaving the
parish.”
“After all,” said Mary, “we have done everything we could for the
parish; and perhaps a little novelty would be good for them now. Uncle
Hugh will be very particular in choosing a very good man to succeed you.
And we have done everything we could; perhaps a new curate who is a
novelty may be better for the parish too.”
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